Weekly update, slow rise continues, winter is here.

In total 4.03 million new cases were reported last week (up from 3.65 million)
Also another 12,726 more deaths were reported (up from 12,090)

USA reported 489K new cases (slightly up from 467K) and 3,265 more deaths (slightly up from 3,072)
Europe reported 1.08 million new cases (slightly down from 1.13 million) and 4,326 more deaths (4,351 last week)

Europe seems to have reached the peak but it could keep hovering there like it did last year.

The continents

Not much happening anymore, no big winter issues

Corners of the world

Japan is still on the rise as well as Brazil. China is reporting fewer symptomatic cases.


China is now doing fewer tests as well, same exit strategy as the rest of the world yet a lot faster, abrupt U-Turn.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/xi-jinping-tied-himself-to-zero-covid-now-he-keeps-silent-as-it-falls-apart-1.6197495

Across the country, COVID testing booths, health code scanning signs and lockdown barriers are being removed at dizzying speed. As infections run rampant, authorities have scrapped a virus-tracking app and given up on reporting asymptomatic infections altogether (they accounted for the bulk of the country's official caseload). The rest of the case count has been rendered meaningless too, as cities roll back mass testing and allow people to use antigen tests and isolate at home.

Since Covid-19 started Deaths have risen past normal levels in the US, leading to the smallest population growth ever. Next year might even have population loss. Islanders and population dense areas have been particularly affected, with the less densely populated areas experiencing a population boom like Idaho and Montana. Internationals have also been much less likely to move to the US during a pandemic.

https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2021/12/us-population-grew-in-2021-slowest-rate-since-founding-of-the-nation.html

The new prevalent strategy in China's efforts to cope with the Covid wave supports quickly infecting as many people as possible to help China achieve herd immunity. The Chinese name for this strategy is "快速达峰" (quickly reaching the peak).

What a 180.

Seems to work....sort of

37 Million infections on December 20.

Weekly update. Reported cases remains the same as last week, reported deaths are up a bit


In total 4.04 million new cases were reported last week (4.03 million last week)
Also another 14,410 deaths were reported (up from 12,726) to a total of 6,684,332

USA reported 459K new cases (slightly down from 489K) and 2,969 more deaths (down from 3,265)
Europe reported 1.03 million new cases (slightly down from 1.08 million) and 5,732 more deaths (up from 4,326)

The continents

Europe, North America and Africa slightly down, Asia, South America, Oceania slightly up.

Corners of the world

Japan continues its slow and steady rise, Brazil as well.
China's reported numbers are completely useless now.



https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/a-very-hard-road-ahead-for-china-as-covid-19-cases-spiral-1.6206734

Nearly three years after it was first identified in China, the coronavirus is now spreading through the vast country. Experts predict difficult months ahead for its 1.4 billion people.

China's unyielding "zero-COVID" approach, which aimed to isolate all infected people, bought it years to prepare for the disease. But an abrupt reopening, which was announced without warning on Dec. 7 in the wake of anti-lockdown protests, has caught the nation under-vaccinated and short on hospital capacity.

Experts have forecast between a million and 2 million deaths next year.



https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/packed-icus-crowded-crematoriums-covid-roils-chinese-towns-1.6208143

As China grapples with its first-ever national COVID-19 wave, emergency wards in small cities and towns southwest of Beijing are overwhelmed. Intensive care units are turning away ambulances, relatives of sick people are searching for open beds, and patients are slumped on benches in hospital corridors and lying on floors for a lack of beds.

Over two days, Associated Press journalists visited five hospitals and two crematoriums in towns and small cities in Baoding and Langfang prefectures, in central Hebei province. The area was the epicentre of one of China's first outbreaks after the state loosened COVID-19 controls in November and December. For weeks, the region went quiet, as people fell ill and stayed home.

Many have now recovered. Today, markets are bustling, diners pack restaurants and cars are honking in snarling traffic, even as the virus is spreading in other parts of China. In recent days, headlines in state media said the area is "starting to resume normal life."

But life in central Hebei's emergency wards and crematoriums is anything but normal. Even as the young go back to work and lines at fever clinics shrink, many of Hebei's elderly are falling into critical condition. It could be a harbinger of what's to come for the rest of China.

Locally no Family Christmas dinner again, this time due to the ongoing winter storm and travel advisory doh. The highways are closed here, storm is said to last until tomorrow afternoon. Blowing snow, whiteouts can happen at any time, plus a nice ice layer under a thin layer of snow on the local roads.

https://www.theweathernetwork.com/ca/news/article/winter-storm-creates-blizzards-whiteouts-across-ontario

A historic winter storm has been sweeping through much of Ontario since Thursday, disrupting travel across the province and leaving thousands without power.

On Thursday, a powerful winter storm moved into Ontario, bringing with it rain, snow, high winds, and freezing temperatures. The storm, caused by a surge of Arctic air clashing with warm, moist air over the Mississippi Valley sparked a weather bomb over the Great Lakes, leading to this historic event.

One concern early in this event was the potential for flash-freezing in parts of southern Ontario after much of the region saw rainfall on Thursday. As the storm continued to move through the region on Friday, bringing with it cold Arctic air, snow, and high winds to create blizzard and whiteout conditions. Paired with the layer of ice caused by the earlier rain, this created very slippery and dangerous conditions for commuters and travellers.

Widespread road closures have occurred across the province, including all roads in Perth county remaining closed as of Saturday morning. The Ontario Provincial Police are continuing to urge people to avoid any travel, as road conditions are still dangerous.

LOL @ the US putting up Covid test requirements for the Chinese in January. Their main variants are miles off the variant soup circulating worldwide and have come and gone elsewhere months ago. Politics comes before science as always I see.

And as usual that would be too late anyway. Any idea what's going on in Japan @haxxiy, still going up there and they now reached their highest daily death count since the pandemic started, with far less cases than the last peak. (Which could just be less testing)
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/japan/

Is it getting fueled on by Chinese tourists or something else?

https://www.livemint.com/news/world/coronavirus-live-updates-latest-coronavirus-news-today-28-december-in-india-china-11672190306558.html

Japan logs 415 Covid deaths, highest-ever single day count

In China, the recent Covid-19 surge has emerged as a ‘source of concern’ for other countries to remain vigilant and step up preparations against the coronavirus infection. With several countries imposing Covid prevention measures for travelers from China, India has also started random testing of international passengers from December 24. 

According to an order by the Ministry of Civil Aviation, airlines are required to direct their crew members to lead and bring identified 2% of international passengers to the testing facility at the airport. India has mandated a Covid-19 negative test report for travelers arriving from China, Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong and Thailand.

Some hospitals and funeral homes in China have been overwhelmed as the virus spreads largely unchecked across the country of 1.4 billion people. China said on Monday it would stop requiring inbound travelers to go into quarantine starting from January 8 in a major step towards easing curbs on its borders, which have been largely shut since 2020.

Despite what people might tell you, or how much Japanese people might hate it. Japan's closest business partner is China by far. China is the number one consumer of Japanese products. While Japan is #3 consumer of Chinese products. In 2020 China had a negative trade balance with Japan.

Chinese citizens still can't go anywhere for tourism until January, so all movement from Chinese citizens are business related.

Either way Japan was relatively unscathed from the initial waves of Covid-19 while the rest of the world suffered greatly. So I think similar to China, Japan is now suffering a little bit more in comparison.

Yep sounds almost insane, that they currently have like 250million people infected/sick with it, and gain like 35-40m new infections pr day.

Same time, in the west, Christmas + New Year's gatherings are bound to lead to rise in cases too.

Japan is having a BA.5.2 wave with just some BQ, as some European countries had in October, Germany being the biggest example. So not quite variant-driven, just the same old stuff from summer but a little more intrinsically fit.

Why vanilla BA.5 would cause two waves in a row in some places is a bit of a mystery. It might be season-related, or might be because these countries have less immunity than others. Compare to South Korea which had a massive BA.2 wave but now has a quiet winter despite a worse variant mix: